


Lazarus

by Luciferious



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Boy King Sam, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-24
Updated: 2012-02-24
Packaged: 2017-11-25 23:12:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/643974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luciferious/pseuds/Luciferious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Boy King puts on his crown to save his brother from Hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lazarus

Dean doesn't wake up.

Sam never expected to get this far. He hoped, he _prayed—_ no matter how futile it may have been—but somewhere deep down in the dark of his heart, Sam had been sure all along this was going to end as horribly as it began. He wasn't going to bring his brother back from Hell; he was going to die trying, and some part of him had taken a sick sort of comfort in the thought. At least Dean wouldn't be alone down there. At least Sam wouldn't be _here_ —just as alone in a way he never learned how to be.

The stench of sulphur and brimstone clings to everything. It's in Sam's hair, his clothes, so deep in his skin he fears it will never really wash away. There's blood caked on his hands and smeared down his face that isn't his, soaking through the front of his shirt. Sam may have never expected to get this far—to the sizzle of dew-laden Wyoming grass under weak knees, to arms blackened by blood and soot in the cool moonlight cradling the warm outline of his brother's stitched-together body—but he's _here_ nevertheless. He's done unspeakable things he can never atone for, given up _everything_ , including his humanity to bring Dean back. And it worked—it _worked_.

Sam shakes. His eyes won't focus. His ears are ringing and he feels like he's burning from the inside out, but he can feel the movement of his brother's silent breaths, and that is as close to paradise as Sam can ever hope to know. If nothing else, if all the good he thought he could do was as misguided and selfish as he feared, at least he could do _this_. Sam pulled his brother out of the fire after a lifetime of Dean doing the same for him.

But he doesn't wake up.

Hours pass. Sam manages to carry Dean back to the road, drive him back to house Sam has been squatting in the better part of a month. His vision is still hazy and he _can't stop shaking_ , but the next thing he knows Dean is on the bare mattress in the middle of the living room, covered in a moth-eaten blanket and still just breathing, just lying there not moving while Sam kneels on the rotted floorboards at his side. Perhaps it was naïve of Sam to not consider this option—to not consider that he might get Dean back without _really_ getting him back at all, but he hadn't. If something was going to go wrong, it should have gone wrong long before now. Sam shouldn't have come back from Hell. He shouldn't have been strong enough. God couldn't be so cruel as to allow Sam to go on like this, just to end up with a corpse that breathes instead of one that doesn't.

Or perhaps this is his punishment. Realization hits Sam like a hammer blow to the gut, wrenching a gasped breath from scorched, tight lungs. He gags on the thick stench of copper and mold in the air, and of course— _of course_ this is his punishment. He doesn't know how he didn't see it before. A dark, _damned_ thing like him deserves nothing else, and Sam slumps under the weight of everything he has done. Everything he has let himself become.

 _The Boy King_ , they called him—faceless shadows whispering through the dark always just out of sight, just in his periphery. But if Sam Winchester is king of anything at all, it's failure. All this power is for _naught_ , because the one thing he set out to do, the one end that could justify the means is slowly slipping away from him moment by moment, with each shallow rise and fall of his brother's chest.

The air shifts. At first it's just a subtle inclination of the breeze slipping through the slats of boarded-up windows, pulling goosebumps up on Sam's arms and cutting a shiver down his spine. But then the air begins to thicken, humid like a Southern summer night, and Sam knows then that he's not alone. If nothing else, this state of being affords him a keener sense of the world, and the heavy air gives way to the susurrus of wings and _light—_ felt instead of seen.

Doom settles heavy in Sam's gut at this rush of sensation, repelling and sickening and somehow _warm_ all at once. He can't bring himself to lift his head—his eyes still can't focus anyway, leaving the world around him as little more than a blur, and though there was a time in Sam's life he might have fallen victim to awe in the presence of a servant of Heaven, now all he feels is a bone-deep weariness. Cold, broken acceptance.

“Who are you?” Sam's voice comes as a rasped plea, impossibly young and small. _Angels_ may have been an abstract concept, beings whose existence relied less on the burden of proof and more on the desperate hope that if Hell exists, Heaven must too—that if one can be damned, surely that means one can also be saved. But Sam doesn't just suspect. He _knows_. He can feel it, a caustic thrum that Sam can only imagine as Grace burning against the demon taint in his veins, and though Sam waits for it, he does not expect a response. He's almost surprised when he gets one.

“Castiel.”

Finally, Sam lifts his head, his curiosity getting the better of him even now. That voice is warm like the brush of crushed velvet, deep and graveled and painfully _human_ , and Sam isn't quite sure what he was expecting. Just that this isn't it. He turns and he squints black eyes against the failing light, peering through hazy darkness, and though his vision never quite clears, his eyes ache against the silhouette before him. Like looking into the sun.

“You're here to kill me, aren't you?” It's not an accusation, let alone a threat. Sam is _so tired_ and lost to grief, he's not sure he has it in him to fight anymore. He'll go quietly, let this angel strike him down right here on his knees—all Sam will ask is that he take care of Dean first. In whatever capacity the Will of Heaven might allow.

For the longest time, Sam is met with silence. It speaks volumes, and slowly, Sam turns away, gaze falling to the dim outline of his brother's still form. He's ready to beg—not for his own life, but for Dean's, and the words are right there, right on the tip of his tongue when a rush of warm air envelopes him once more.

“No, Sam.” There's a touch then, the hot cup of a palm around his chin. Sam keens against it and his vision begins to clear, blinking hard at the rush of heat that moves through him. Castiel's voice is familiar in a way Sam can't pinpoint, kind in a way an angel has no business using with a _monster_ like him. But Sam sees none of the disdain he expects in the cool blue looking down at him, none of the anger. Sam's heart pounds against his ribs, and that _awe_ he missed before, the hope he once clung to so desperately that there was light to be found in all this darkness washes through him with unprecedented _relief_.

“I'm here to help you.”


End file.
